Jazz Poems

MELODY FORENSIC

If someone told me I only had one hour to live,

I’d spend it choking a white man. I’d do it nice and slow.

MILES DAVIS

Years in the gristle of knuckles. Thick muscle

at the palm’s base. Fingers squeezing,

digging valve keys to mold exhales. Some pain

pinched by the reed—would it wail

if you found a pink neck before leadpipe brass?

Forgive the epigraph. Don’t apologize,

your music may taste funny to someone

after reading this. But damn Miles (if I can call you

Miles) why do black men have to scream in art?

What wants off our tongue floats

in the same ether lungs feed wood-wind

(now you got me doing it). Listen

if “I hurt” falls deaf on their ears,

Kind of Blue is no different.

The black-sound congeals in mason jars

lined across the tops of rickety stoves.

We been frying our story, over-seasoned

with silences. Miles

(I’m calling

you Miles) you don’t want to play. Sweet indulgence—

let’s pretend we’re back at the Five Spot, the poem

just another stage light. Move it,

put the trumpet down. Where would you start?

Maybe there, Mr. Cool at the bar—hear lolling,

eyes wilted from you blow,

a coil of saliva in his throat so

sure he can swallow your blue note whole.

KYLE DARGAN 

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